There are two reasons why it is a huge pleasure for me to speak about this Bill today. First, it is a very important Bill. Secondly, today is a significant personal milestone for me, because precisely 10 years ago, in the afternoon, I was at the Nuffield hospital in Shrewsbury in the throes of a six-hour operation to remove a cancerous tumour from my body. For those who are medically minded, it was a lower bowel perineal resection, which is pretty significant. One would have got very long odds indeed on my speaking in this Chamber 10 years later and representing my constituency of Montgomeryshire, particularly as it was one of the safest Liberal Democrat seats in the country.
I welcome the Bill and its commitment to energy market reform. Its purpose is to keep the lights on at an affordable cost to the country and to control the amounts of harmful gases which, it is said, are leading to global warming. Although I understand that we have not had global warming for 15 years, that is still a laudable aim for us to have. It is a complex and wide-ranging Bill, and we can come at it from a variety of angles. I do not want to repeat what other Members have said, which often happens later on in a debate; I want to put forward considerations that Ministers might take into account when they deal with the element of contracts for difference and put some detail on to that.
I have spoken in this Chamber several times before about my antipathy to onshore wind projects in my area, and it has been difficult for me to do so without becoming very angry because of the unreasonableness of the situation. My constituency has been very supportive of renewable energy for as long as I can remember. It probably has more turbines than any other constituency in England and Wales, and in the middle of it is the Centre for Alternative Technology. It had general support for renewable energy until the two Governments—here in Westminster and in Cardiff—came together to attempt to impose on the constituency the Mid Wales Connection. That project involves between 500 and 700 extra turbines, on top of what is there now, and almost 100 miles of cable, 35 miles of which is on 150 foot-high steel towers. It has transformed the attitudes of the people of mid-Wales because of its sheer unreasonableness.
It is not just me, as one Member in Montgomeryshire, who feels this way. I would point out to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the other two MPs representing mid-Wales constituencies, both of them Liberal Democrats, share my view absolutely. There is a cross-party realisation of the unreasonableness of what is proposed for mid-Wales.
The element of local democracy is important. Governments in London or in Cardiff may feel that mid-Wales can be sacrificed in what might be termed the national interest, but it is not surprising that the people who live in these constituencies take an entirely different view and feel that we want to defend them. The applications by the development companies make
no reference at all to the cumulative impact, to the importance of wild spaces and wild land in Britain, or to the scenic impact that the project might have. All these things are devastating to the local community.
A few days ago, the local council—the planning authority—announced that it had set aside £2.8 million to defend itself in the decisions that were going to appeal. There were only five such decisions. Powys county council does not have £2.8 million, and this would be devastating for local services. The council therefore asked the Welsh Government if they would help it to defend its planning judgments. The spokesman for the Welsh Government said that the council knew the costs involved when it turned the applications down. Clearly, the view is that the council should take the costs into account and approve applications because it could not meet them. That is an affront to democracy.
Another constituency issue relates to anaerobic digestion, of which I am a great supporter. Mr Clive Pugh from Mellington is a pioneer in this field, which he moved into before the feed-in tariff legislation went through. He is currently paid 7p or 8p per unit, while all new developments of the same size are paid 14p per unit. He is a pioneer who put himself on the line, and he will be driven out of business. We need to ensure that any new system under contracts for difference takes into account the impact on the pioneers—those who came before.
5.34 pm